Football club sells anti-Semitic T-shirts

T-shirts with anti-Semitic slogans are being sold outside the stadium of Polish premier league football side Widzew Lodz.

The items have been on sale in a pavilion next to the grounds, right alongside the club's official shop.

“This is Widzew terrain, entry to Jews is forbidden,” reads the slogan on one T-shirt.

“Curl hunters,” proclaims another, adopting the old derogatory slang that refers to the curled locks of orthodox Jews.

Other shirts are aimed at ridiculing rival football clubs.

A woman working in the shop told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily that such items sell well and make a decent profit.

Lodz, a former industrial city that was once dubbed “the Polish Manchester”, had a population of over 600,000 prior to the war, a third of which was Jewish.

The Jewish Ghetto created by the Germans in the city was the second biggest in occupied Poland, and Jews from across Europe were interned there. It has been estimated that only 10,000 of those dispatched to the ghetto survived the war.

Incitement to racist crimes is illegal in Poland.

With the country preparing to co-host the Euro 2012 tournament this June, government regulations cleared by the Polish Football Association (PZPN) state that fans are not allowed to bring materials that are “racist, xenophobic, political, religious and propaganda-based” into stadiums. (nh/pg)